


unsung "i love you's"

by remmikub



Series: unbreakable promises [2]
Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Violence, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Slight gore?, emma's got some Family Issues tm, i abuse the found family trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remmikub/pseuds/remmikub
Summary: Her name was Kelly Coombs. Her leg was healing. She was off to Colorado to live her life. And though no one would ever know it, she was the lone survivor of the Hatchetfield Catastrophe.(Written as an interlude to CoffeeJack's "Promises Made After" series, but can be read as a stand-alone!)





	unsung "i love you's"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CoffeeJack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeJack/gifts).



> hey yall its ya boi remmy back with another "promises made after" interlude cause i love CoffeeJack's prose, this time with ya girl emma perkins. 
> 
> tumbler.hell: @twelveeyes-ortwo

“Yeah, you're right. Fuck it, get out of here.”

And then Paul was gone, marching off to save the world. She was alone again, and the implications of that were terrifying. The helicopter might have scared them off temporarily, but the streets of Hatchetfield wouldn’t be empty for long. She needed cover, and fast.

The helicopter. It would be shitty, cramped, and falling apart around her but it was all she had.

She dragged her body behind her to the wreck of the helicopter, cursing under her breath the entire way. Fucking Hatchetfield. Zoey’s body was still there, but absolutely destroyed, blue viscera spattered over the wreck. She had to hope that she couldn’t be infected if the host was dead. She heaved her body up into the wreckage of machinery, wincing every time she was forced to use her impaled leg. This was less than ideal, to say the least, but it was her only option.

She let her head fall back upon the wreck, desperately trying to remember what the professor had told her about what to do should she be impaled. At the time it seemed such an odd thing to cover in a Bio 101 class, but now? She was more than grateful. She fumbled with her shirt, using the wreck around her to tear a long strip of fabric, tying it around her leg with another rod of shrapnel to form a tourniquet. Thank God for the professor.

Oh God, the Professor. He was carried off by those fucked up aliens, and she couldn’t do anything to help. She needed someone to care about her when everything was lost, and he did. But now he was gone too.

First Jane, then Hidgens, and now Paul.

She sent Paul into the Hive’s nest, if he didn’t come back out alive, it would be all her fault.

The air in the helicopter seemed so thick. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t—

“Emma,” A soft voice rang out through the wreck. A soft voice that she knew. A soft voice she thought she’d never hear again. Emma stifled the urge to vomit as her sister, Jane, staggered closer and closer to her hiding spot within the helicopter. Jane looked almost beautiful in her apotheosis. Emma’s hands shot up to hide her face — when did she start crying? — constantly reminding herself that wasn’t her sister, that her sister was dead, and that thing wanted to kill her too.

Not that it did much good.

Jane was upon her now, hands too perfect, too well kept, clawing through the shrapnel to drag Emma out of the wreck. Arms encapsulated her, restraining her, holding her, and Emma remembered how much she missed Jane’s hugs.

“I’m here Emma, you can let it all out.”

Soon Jane’s, blue and unnatural, was added to the blood on Emma’s hands. Two bullets from behind them split Jane’s head open while another landed in her heart. Emma barely had time to register the two figures, dressed in military garb, before the back of a gun came cracking down on the back of her head.

 

* * *

 

When she woke up everything was white. Sterile. Clean. This wasn’t Hatchetfield. Nurses were always shuffling about, speaking to each other and to her, but she couldn’t understand them. Everything felt… Foggy.

“Good to see you awake, Ms. Jane Doe,” The new voice cutting through the fog in her mind was harsh, and it made her head ache. “You’re in the ICU of a base of United States Military, special unit PEIP. Our intel had led us to believe that the entire population of Hatchetfield was infected with this contagion, so I hope you won’t mind that we’ve taken the liberty of keeping you in quarantine until we’ve seen proof that you have not been infected. You’re quite lucky, we were able to save the leg you tourniqueted. Remarkably well, might I add—”

“Where’s Paul—”

“There were no other survivors, Ms. Doe.”

“Emma. My name is Emma.”

“Well then Emma, welcome to Clivesdale. Questioning starts today.”

 

* * *

 

The days passed in a blur, constant tests and medical treatment melded together within the white walls of her hospital room. She was given a new name. Emma Perkins was dead.

“Is she ready to go?” She heard someone outside her door ask.

Her name was Kelly Coombs. Her leg was healing. She was off to Colorado to live her life. And though no one would ever know it, she was the lone survivor of the Hatchetfield Catastrophe.

 

* * *

 

There were bodies all around her, grasping at her.

Everything she never said played through her mind like a fucked-up best hits album.

Every apology she thought but never said because she was too proud.

Every event she missed.

Every milestone she should have celebrated.

Every I love you she felt like she was undeserving of.

Now, with the only two people she ever loved poised and ready to end her life; now, with Hidgens' hands — hands she had grown to love and trust — locking her in a death grip; now, with Paul looming over her, undead but almost angelic, she was afraid. Not of dying, no. But of what came after.

Would she really be happy? She would finally be reunited with everyone she cared for?

Would she finally be able to tell them the “I love you’s” she never got to say?

 

* * *

 

Schaffer would not allow her to find out.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, she was not, in fact, Hatchetfield’s only survivor. She was assigned a hospital room with a young woman — younger than she was at least — called Melissa. She came here with that hot chocolate boy from Beanies, Oliver.

This base was shit, but at least she wasn’t alone.

 

* * *

 

“Why was I not the first person to know about this? How long has he been awake?” She yelled at anyone who would listen. Soldiers and medical staff were swarming the halls, making it a difficult task to keep navigating the halls of the base, trying to find where everyone was headed.

God, Fuck Colonel Schaffer. She swore she was going to fight the next person she saw.

Oh. Schaffer’s right-hand man, Remus, opened the door to a hospital room. He held her gaze, no words needing to be spoken. He put his hand gently on her shoulder as he opened the door again to guide her into the room.

A small crowd split, and there was…

Was…

Was Paul.

He croaked out her name, and she flinched. But her “I love you’s” would go unsaid no longer.

He kept talking, voice hoarse but beautiful. Before she realized it, she was seated at his side, embracing him.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise, Paul.”


End file.
